392 articles
There are two battles going on that will influence how the economy performs for the rest of this year. The first is a battle for attention between the general economic news and the profits performance of America’s leading companies. The second is a battle between austerity advocates and the…
Mason-Dixon poll: Angle 42%, Reid 43%.
Though this is a little late in the game for fact checking, the Defense Department just fired out an important clarification in the WikiLeaks case:
Jonathan Rauch has written a fascinating article for National Journal using data from the Pew Research Center. His argument is complicated, so let's reduce it to bullet points.
Last night in the House, a bill to provide $7.4 billion in funding over 10 years to those whose health was affected by the World Trade Center attack got 255 votes--well above a simple majority. But the bill failed because Democrats suspended the rules, which denied the Republicans the chance to…
Sickening:
“Breaking a Promise on Surveillance,” is the headline of a New York Times editorial this morning. At issue is an Obama administration proposal to allow the FBI to obtain lists of anyone’s email correspondents and web browsing history by issuing a National Security Letter without going to…
The Anti-Defamation League, which describes itself as "the world's leading organization fighting anti-Semitism through programs and services that counteract hatred, prejudice and bigotry," released a statment this morning opposing the building of the 13-story mosque near Ground Zero.
Ha: Obama finally finds a leader worth bowing to.
In Florida, Quinnipiac shows that independent Senate candidate Charlie Crist has a lead of five or six points depending on which Democrat is in the race. The poll puts Crist at 39%, Republican Marco Rubio at 33%, and Democrat Kendrick Meek at 13%. And: Crist at 37%, Rubio at 32%, Democrat Jeff…
One of the key problems facing the U.S. military is the pressing need for force modernization. Most of its defense hardware -- tanks, jets, fighting ships -- are leftovers from the Reagan era defense build-up. And some are even older: like the KC-135 Stratotanker, the B-52 bomber, the M102…
Sydney, Australia
The proportion of Republicans, Democrats, and independents that turnout to vote shape the outcome of every election. Even small shifts in these percentages can dramatically alter political outcomes. And this November’s midterm is no exception.
The New York Observer reports:
Paul Ryan talks economic policy with Ezra Klein.
Gary Schmitt debunks former CIA guy Jack Devine's plan for Afghanistan, as outlined in today's Wall Street Journal, which calls for the U.S. to "start...developing a new covert action plan to be implemented by the Central Intelligence Agency." Schmitt writes:
In an appropriately titled piece ("Nil, Baby, Nil"), Commentary's Abe Greenwald notices that observers of the oil spoil in the Gulf of Mexico are beginning to think that it might not be that bad after all. Greenwald quotes the New York Times as reporting yesterday, "The oil slick in the Gulf of…
A Senate Conservatives Fund press release:
Who said this?
Politico reports on some breaking news:
Via Politico, Charlie Crist shows he's proficient at the non-answer as well as the flip-flop:
Jim Galloway at the AJC has the latest ad from Georgia's Karen Handel, the Sarah Palin-endorsed candidate for governor. Handel is facing former Rep. Nathan Deal in the runoff on August 10. The ad features the Palin endorsement prominently:
Jonah Goldberg is rightfully demanding impeachment charges to be drawn up:
The AP reports:
60 Minutes had a fascinating report last week on what it calls "The Narrative," which "says that the United States is out to destroy Islam," and a man who devotes his life to combating this absurd meme. The man is Maajid Nawaz, who himself was once a radical fundamentalist. It's worth viewing in…
President Obama spoke to the Urban League in Washington, D.C. this morning. Here's what he had to say about the firing of Shirley Sherrod:
Boy Scouts celebrated their 100-year anniversary at their National Jamboree in Fort A.P. Hill, Virginia this week. President Obama decided not to attend, so he could instead tape his appearance on The View. That's too bad. For a century, Boy Scouts of America has been a top organization that…
Time's managing editor Richard Stengel explains the cover of his magazine this week:
I like reading a lot of what Nate Silver has to write at fivethirtyeight.com
As the whole world knows by now, several weeks ago, the New York Times was given a trove of some 92,000 classified documents about the war in Afghanistan by Julian Assange, the shadowy head of WikiLeaks. In exchange for advance access, it promised to hold them until July 25, the day it published a…
Last November, as members of the House of Representatives considered the health care reform bill, President Obama made a dramatic trip to Capitol Hill. After closing down sixteen blocks of Pennsylvania Avenue, a half-mile long White House motorcade whisked the presidential entourage past cheering…
Sharron Angle trailing Harry Reid 43% to 45% in Rasmussen poll.
Julian Assange, the man in charge of WikiLeaks, released a video earlier this year slandering U.S. troops as being guilty of "collateral murder." Now Fox News reports:
In this attempt at satire, employees of the Center for American Progress mock their boss, UFO guy John Podesta, for his odd fascination with UFOs:
A new Congressional Research Service report confirms that Obamacare allows federal funding of elective abortions for people purchasing plans in high risk pools. Philip Klein writes at the American Spectator:
The New York Times reports:
This week in The Weekly Standard, James Ceasar argues that "Barack Obama has accomplished a rare feat: The longer he holds office, the more he diminishes in stature." He has wandered far and frequently down the road to populism, Ceasar argues, thereby frittering away all the stature his lofty…
John Podesta is a distinguished Washington insider. He is currently the president of the liberal Center for American Progress, and previously served as co-chair of Barack Obama’s presidential transition team (2008-2009) and White House chief of staff for Bill Clinton. Podesta is also a visiting law…
The Taliban's supreme leader Mullah Omar has come out with a directive, ordering his guys "to kill or capture any civilians, including Afghan women, who cooperate with Coalition forces." Thomas Joscelyn and Bill Roggio have the scoop over at the Long War Journal:
Tim Scott is the most heralded Republican House candidate this year, and for good reason. He’s likeable, experienced in politics at the local and state level, a self-described “bleeding heart conservative” of the Jack Kemp school, and the champion of an economic program he describes as “under the…
Sanctions on Iran are beginning to bite, but does it matter?
The news this week from Iran reports that Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, a 43 year-old widow and mother of two boys, will not be stoned to death for the crime of adultery. But before anyone rejoices in the Iranian regime making a concession to a modern value system that doesn’t punish innocent,…
Steny Hoyer, for one, never signed up for that whole "drain the swamp" business.
A new AP/Univision poll shows that Hispanic support for Obama has slipped from 66% in May to 57% this week. As Karl at Hot Air points out, Gallup also reports that Obama's approval rating has dropped into the mid-50s. PPP polls have also shown Hispanic support for Obama dropping since the passage…
Republicans blocked passage of the campaign finance law known as the DISCLOSE Act on a 57 to 41 vote today. Though Democrats officially failed to break the filibuster by three votes, they are really only one vote shy from breaking the filibuster.
Although most court-watchers' eyes are fixed on the Supreme Court, it remains prudent to pay attention to the lower courts, too. Law professor Carl Tobias, writing at the National Law Journal, sees two vacancies on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and he wants Obama to fill them…
The Washington Post reports on Virginia governor Bob McDonnell's plan to privatize the state's liquor stores:
How does a Republican unseat a conservative Democrat who voted against Obamacare and cap-and-trade? Mississippi state senator Alan Nunnelee, who spoke with me last week in Washington, thinks he has the answer.
If only our representatives would be as steadfast in caring for every dollar of our money:
Five days after the House ethics committee charged Rep. Charlie Rangel with possible violations, and Rangel professed to be "looking forward" to fighting the charges in a public trial, the congressman is reportedly trying to do a last minute deal:
Last Thursday, July 22, 20-year-old Zachary A. Chesser of Fairfax County, Va., was arrested for providing material support to, and attempting to join, the Somali Islamist militia affiliated with al Qaeda, al-Shabab. Chesser has been ordered to remain in jail until his trial.
Must-see TV:
The Netroots Nation has spoken, according to this unofficial poll:
Could WikiLeaks and its organizer, the shadowy Australian Julian Assange, be prosecuted for publishing classified information? As a practical matter, the idea is a non-starter. Since Assange lives abroad, prosecutors would find it difficult to gain jurisdiction. And if he were charged in…
Bush, Bush, Bush!
One of the more interesting aspects of the WikiLeaks document dump is the persistence of intelligence reports indicating collusion between al Qaeda, al Qaeda-affiliated parties, and Iran. By itself, this should not be surprising. The 9/11 Commission, Clinton-era federal prosecutors, and many others…
The Journolisters investigate who the real mother of Trig Palin is.
Say you're a Midwestern Republican governor and likely presidential candidate looking to distinguish yourself from another Midwestern Republican governor and likely presidential candidate, Mitch Daniels of Indiana. How do you do it? Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty seems to think he's figured it out.
For musicians, managers, and venue owners, the fears of a concert going awry are multiple. Often the problem is crowd control (the 11 fans who were stomped to death at the Who concert in Cincinnati in 1979). Sometimes it stems from security (the Hells Angels at the Altamont Speedway in 1969). Other…
The European Union announced today that it would be imposing robust sanctions on Iran, targeting its energy, shipping, insurance and financial sectors. After seven years of being out-negotiated and out-organized by the mullahs, the 27 member states of the EU are now more cognizant of the Iranian…
Though he'll regretably be remembered most for his turn in Rolling Stone, we should not forget Gen. Stanley McChrystal's contributions to his country, the Army, and the conflict in Afghanistan.
Travel writing can be tough, despite what you might think. You're jotting down notes about the beautiful sunset, rather than just watching it. Coming up with the right words is a constant struggle. And still I wonder with great envy how Toni Bentley, a ballerina and author, landed the plum…
Last summer, pundits were writing the political obituaries of Cristina and Néstor Kirchner, Argentina’s first couple. Their coalition had suffered big losses in national legislative elections. Néstor, the former Argentine president (2003–2007), had failed in his bid to win a congressional seat, and…
The New York Times puts the monetary cost of war into perspective with this interesting graphic:
It will take some time to comb through the massive document dump that WikiLeaks unleashed last night. Thus far, a database available on the WikiLeaks website includes almost 77,000 documents. There are reportedly upwards of 15,000 more on the way. What we’ve seen thus far is not really…
Rasmussen polls the Arizona GOP Senate primary:
Jay Cost has devised a new system for analyzing this year's midterm elections, in which he looks at the quality of opponents to incumbents, the popularity of the president, and voters' notions of the state of the country. Here's the conclusion, though it's worth reading the whole piece to…
Is the leak of 92,000 classified documents pertaining to the war in Afghanistan now published by WikiLeaks and reprinted by the New York Times and some European publications a catastrophe? An affirmative answer is certainly suggested by a White House statement that says the document dump “could put…
Facing thousands of worried members at the annual convention of the National Education Association on July 3, the head of the nation’s largest teachers’ union sounded a little whiny.
Denver
Behind many conspiracy theories, The Scrapbook has always suspected, lies a deep longing to believe that the ships of state are being captained by highly competent, ingenious people. Evil geniuses, to be sure, but geniuses nonetheless.
The Democrats ballyhooed campaign finance bill, the DISCLOSE Act, came up short in the Senate today failing to get the necessary 60 votes for cloture:
The World That Never Was
In 2005, University of Chicago finance professor Raghuram Rajan published a paper in the proceedings of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City called “Has Financial Development Made the World Riskier?” Rajan, then the chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, warned bluntly that…
In a remarkable demonstration of defining deviancy down, Oakland is congratulating itself for the scale of the riots that broke out July 8 in response to the verdict in a police shooting case. “So a hundred businesses were damaged and looted,” the conventional wisdom in Oakland holds, “so police…
Dinner for Schmucks
Philadelphia
Marinated in whiskey and cured in cigarette smoke, Beryl Bainbridge’s ravaged, masklike visage—the most memorable since Auden’s—was familiar to every literate Briton. Over there, she was a personality, holding court in her ramshackle London home, recounting her misadventures, lamenting and…
C. Holland Taylor doesn’t look like a man radical Muslims should fear. He is trim, unassuming, and speaks with a faint southern accent. His stylish blond haircut and trim suit give him the appearance of a fortysomething European businessman. He possesses no arsenal of weapons, holds no government…
William Golding
It’s What’s Inside the Lines That Counts
There is only one thing that terrifies Washington’s foreign policy establishment more than the prospect of an American airstrike against Iran’s nuclear-weapons facilities: an Israeli airstrike. Left, right, and center, “sensible” people view the idea with alarm. Such an attack would, they say, do…
It’s starting to dawn on me that my personal campaign to eliminate the use of the word issue to mean difficulty, misapprehension, disturbance, irritation, objection, and a dozen unrelated words is doomed. My parallel campaign against reaching out is probably in trouble too. Reach out is a cant…
Last month, we published an editorial under the title “A Period of Consequences.” The phrase was taken from a speech in the House of Commons in late 1936 in which Winston Churchill warned: “The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays is coming to its…
Expect this story from the New York Times to restart the discussion on U.S. policies and strategies in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
“The Economy Is Back,” trumpets the upper left corner of the cover of Time magazine. “The Economy Stinks,” moans the lower right corner. More professionally, Federal Reserve Board chairman Ben Bernanke tells Congress that most of the participants on the Fed’s monetary policy committee view…
PPP: Jeb Bush leading incumbent Democratic senator Bill Nelson in 2012 matchup.
GOP hopes to recapture the House this November hinge on the success of a few underdog challengers to Democratic incumbents. One such candidate, entrepreneur Bobby Schilling from Moline, Illinois, is running to unseat second-term Democrat Phil Hare in Illinois-17. A 46-year-old father of no fewer…
The Chicago Tribune ran a positively earth-shaking expose on the front page today, proving that Illinois Republican Senate candidate Mark Kirk does not perfectly recall events that happened over three decades ago.
Rasmussen polls the West Virginia Senate race:
"Fiorina faces challenge on abortion," reports Politico:
Columnist Mark Shields expounds the martial virtues:
Yesterday, both the New York Times and Josh Rogin at Foreign Policy’s “The Cable” posted pieces on the growing pressure within Congress to cut defense spending. And, indeed, both the House and Senate appropriators are well on their way to doing precisely that to the Obama administration’s FY 2011…
I knew Obama's post-partisan promise would bear fruit some day. I'm happy to come together with my ideological foes in the simple, human recognition that "Special Comments" are totally blowhardy.
How many Gitmo detainees traveled to Afghanistan to find a wife? A fair number, if you accept their cover stories at face value, something only a fool would do.
I don't know why y'all would think that a subcommittee on ethics not convened since James Traficant would worry Charlie Rangel. I guess 40 years in a safe Congressional seat makes a man supremely confident. Rangel told reporters yesterday, after a House committee revealed he would be charged with…
What is combat in Afghanistan like? For those of us who have not been embedded as reporters, but want to know what our soldiers in this difficult war are up against, there is now Restrepo, a documentary film by Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger. The subtitle of the film is “One Platoon, One…
Journolistas even clam up in unison.
Farnborough Airport
A jihadist in Virginia with ties to foreign terror networks -- the 'man who threatened South Park' -- has been arrested by the FBI.
Tucker Carlson responds to criticism the Daily Caller has faced for reporting on Journolist emails:
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Rangel's lawyer tried to settle but was rebuffed. The man who writes the tax law you must follow:
The latest Daily Caller report by Jonathan Strong on the JournoList focuses on the reaction to John McCain's pick of Sarah Palin. The piece is worth reading in full, but I found the most interesting part to be the response from Time magazine columnist Joe Klein:
The Arizona Republic reports the state of Arizona is telling its employees that Obamacare will increase the cost of health care premiums:
I know, I know, the perennial National Conversation on Race is just getting started, but the Colorado GOP Senate primary would like to direct our attention on gender politics. CBS reports:
Courtesy of the U.S. government’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the news media has been full of reports in the last few days about last month being the “hottest June” yet recorded and 2010 being on track likewise to be the hottest year. Such reports concern the “global…
Concerns over the public debt make it highly unlikely that the government will pass any sort of fiscal stimulus anytime soon. Of course, that might not make much of a difference -- Congress passed stimulus bills in 2008 and 2009 and a much smaller jobs bill this year, and the economy is still…
The tenth anniversary Trafficking in Person’s (TIP) report is nearly 400 pages filled with assessments of 175 different countries’ efforts to combat human trafficking. It is a monumental achievement that provides a diagnosis of the impact of human trafficking around the world. It represents the…
In their desperation to cut losses in the 2010 midterms, Democrats are relying ever more heavily on their message that Republicans care nothing about the poor. The GOP, we are told, has opposed tax relief for working class families, subsidized health insurance for those who can’t afford it, and…
My favorite movie critic, David Thomson, has a great piece on Christopher Nolan's latest blockbuster, Inception. Key bit:
For Shirley Sherrod, the moment of retribution has arrived. Not only has she focused her guns on the vast right-wing conspiracy, but she has also singled out Fox News as leading the charge. Why? As the former Ag employee told Media Matters, the network would "love to take us back to where we were…
The Daily Caller reported yesterday on public radio employee Sarah Spitz's desire to watch Rush Limbaugh die:
Back in 2009, Admiral Dennis Blair, director of National Intelligence, picked the former ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Charles “Chas” Freeman, to run the National Intelligence Council, the top analysis group inside the U.S. intelligence world. Freeman was compelled to withdraw from consideration…
Fred Barnes in the Wall Street Journal on JournoList and the liberal media's herd mentality:
Those who want to see better public policy in America owe a high five to LeBron James.
The news media hailed President Obama’s victory on the Wall Street reform bill signed into law earlier this week as another example of his legislative prowess.
GOP congressional candidate leading incumbent Democrat Perriello 58% to 35% in Virginia.
I wrote yesterday that cries of racism without just cause and serious proof are damaging to the falsely accused, the political process, race relations, and those who suffer from actual racism. I was talking mostly about the left's cynical and frequent use of "racism" accusations to marginalize…
The European Union is slated this week to wrap up a new round of sanctions. Their goal is to force Iran to suspend its illicit nuclear program. After years of inaction, the European Union is now amenable to inflicting real economic pain on the Iranian regime where it is most vulnerable –…
Via Political Wire, Republican Rob Simmons, who had "released" his campaign staff after losing the Connecticut GOP's endorsement to Linda McMahon, is running campaign ads:
Yesterday’s confirmation hearing for Lt. Gen. James Clapper, who is poised to take over as the new director of National Intelligence, highlighted a fundamental challenge facing America’s intelligence community (IC). How much, and in what ways, should the sprawling intelligence bureaucracy be…
Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin delivered a speech at AEI today on the fight against big government. You can watch the speech below:
We are on Day Two of JournoList revelations at The Daily Caller.
The FT has had tons of good stuff lately. Here's columnist Tim Harford on another side of Keynes:
Via Robert Costa, Republican Rep. Shelley Moore Capito won't run for the West Virginia Senate seat recently held by Robert Byrd. Here's Capito's statement:
On July 19, Andrew Breitbart posted a video of USDA official Shirley Sherrod speaking at an NAACP event. In that clip, Sherrod told the audience that she had once withheld the "full force of what I could do" for a white farmer because of his race. Shortly after the video was posted Agriculture…
Lt. General James R. Clapper, Jr., the president’s nominee for director of National Intelligence, is taking a hard line on information security, but only where it counts.
Reading this piece on Greece's debt-ridden rail system in today's Times, I was struck by these lines:
CNNMoney.com has an informative piece on the deflation threat today, featuring quotes from economists familiar to readers of various econ blogs. Why do many economists believe deflation is a bad thing? Because,
Conservatives are fond of denigrating Barack Obama as a foreign policy wimp, a president determined to demonstrate American weakness around the world, one begging for dialogue with dictators, and apologizing for past American sins, real and imagined. Even if overdrawn, there has been justification…
Sarah Palin: An intolerable mistake on hallowed ground.
Kenneth Rogoff, coauthor of This Time is Different, in the FT:
Late last Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to block the transfer of a Guantanamo detainee named Farhi Saeed Bin Mohammed to his home country of Algeria. Mohammed claims that he will be tortured or killed if he is returned to Algeria. The Obama administration argued that his fears are…
Obama reverses course on recess appointment and sends Berwick nomination to the Senate.
Charlie Crist has already flip flopped on education, offshore drilling, and taxpayer-funding of abortion, so his comments in the Wall Street Journal today on Obamacare and Sonia Sotomayor aren't surprising. Still, his shameless transformation into a lockstep Democrat is somewhat fascinating:
JTA's Ron Kampeas reports on the brouhaha developing in Pennsylvania between Democratic Senate candidate Joe Sestak and the Emergency Committee for Israel:
Reading Norman Podhoretz's The Bloody Crossroads (1986), I came across this striking passage from his essay "The Adversary Culture and the New Class":
The Hill reports:
The FBI detonated a bomb in Pennsylvania made of the components Faisal Shahzad intended to use before he resorted to cheaper alternatives. In May, Shahzad left his SUV in the middle of Times Square, where it merely smoked instead of exploding:
Sharif El-Gamal, owner of Soho Properties. Inc., purchaser of the buildings near Ground Zero that have been slated for transformation into a 15-story mosque has come before the public, via CNN, to argue in favor of the project, known as “Cordoba House.”
When an economist such as Alan S. Blinder, a professor at Princeton and former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, writes on the relative merits of different forms of stimulus, as he did in an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal titled “Obama’s Fiscal Priorities Are Right,” isn’t it…
If you ever had any doubt that the left's incessant cries of "racism" have become largely a cynical political ploy designed to marginalize and shut up political opponents, behold the birth of a racism accusation in all its naked glory as discussed on the infamous JournoList.
The Guardian reports on the Times of London's experiment with a paywall: "The Times has lost almost 90% of its online readership compared to February since making registration mandatory in June, calculations by the Guardian show." In February the Times had 1.2 million daily unique users, and now…
Andrew Breitbart posted a video yesterday of USDA official Shirley Sherrod saying during a speech to the NAACP that she had once withheld "the full force of what I could do" for a white farmer because of his race. Fox News reports that Sherrod was fired shortly after the video was posted:
Kyle Trygstad reports:
It’s a familiar trick: When the Castro regime wants something from the international community, it makes a grand show of releasing political prisoners, in hopes of convincing foreign officials that Cuba has liberalized and thus deserves to be rewarded.
CNBC to Christina Romer: So, how many jobs has the stimulus actually created or saved? "It's very hard to say exactly—you don't know what the baseline is."
In the aftermath of the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war, the UN inserted a peacekeeping force of 11,000 troops from 31 nations. According to the UN resolution authorizing the mission, its purpose was to block the flow of weapons to Hezbollah and keep Hezbollah from operating south of the Litani River, near…
Anwar al Awlaki has been designated a terrorist by the Treasury Department.
When health care reform was being debated this year, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi infamously declared, “But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.” Now a liberal California group is attempting to do the same thing: Pass a bill first, ask questions later. This time,…
Tomorrow's GOP primary in Georgia could produce another victory for Republican kingmaker (or queenmaker) Sarah Palin. Last week, Palin endorsed Karen Handel, the Republican secretary of state, for governor over longtime insurance commissioner John Oxendine and former congressman Nathan Deal. The…
Before he started the late New York Sun, Ira Stoll had a great blog called Smartertimes.com, in which he pointed out the Gray Lady's errors, inconsistencies, and absurdities on a regular basis. Now Stoll runs a blog called FutureofCapitalism.com. Today's great catch: The Times op-ed page printed a…
Lake Geneva, Wisconsin
Before he started the late New York Sun, Ira Stoll had a great blog called Smartertimes.com, in which he pointed out the Gray Lady's errors, inconsistencies, and absurdities on a regular basis. Now Stoll runs a blog called FutureofCapitalism.com. Today's great catch: The Times op-ed page printed a…
The Washington Post reports on the latest developments in the Emergency Committee for Israel/Joe Sestak brouhaha going on in Philadelphia:
In war, victory belongs to the most persevering. Unfortunately, the endurance and political will to persist through a tough military slog like Afghanistan are precious commodities -- particularly given tough economic times and given complicated military and political objectives. No one would accuse…
It may be a big year for the GOP, but even the expected anti-Democratic tide can’t unseat an entrenched liberal like Dennis Kucinich -- or can it? Peter J. Corrigan says he’s the one to do it, and a recent poll shows the idea may not be too outrageous.
In recent years, Latin America’s trade with India, the world’s largest democracy, has grown much more slowly than its trade with China. However, the Latin Business Chronicle notes that “an increasing number of Indian companies are now looking at Latin America as the ‘next frontier.’” The quote…
There is a very good reason why the White House – even with a generally complicit media – is having trouble persuading Americans that the stimulus spending is creating jobs: There seems to be an enormous disconnect between local economic development and creating net new jobs on a national basis.
No reconciliation for Dems because they didn't pass a budget?
Arnold Kling has a great post this morning on the "neo-Reactionaries." The best part:
In his statement celebrating the passage of the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill last week, President Obama said: "There will be no more taxpayer-funded bailouts -- period."
The first installment of the Washington Post blockbuster, “Top Secret America,” by Dana Priest and William Arkin, two years in the making, is finally out today. It paints a surprisingly unsurprising picture of duplication and triplication in the intelligence world.
I am about to publish a new book—egads, my twenty-first, which surely qualifies me as a graphomaniac—and the other day 25 so-called author’s copies arrived. The thrill of holding the artifact, the physical object that is the palpable result of one’s lucubrations, in one’s hand is still there. So is…
Law and Literature
When CIA director Leon Panetta declared on a Sunday talk show in late June that “we’re looking at maybe 50 to 100” al Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan, “maybe less,” some commentators took this as a political turning point. British journalist and author Stephen Grey commented via his Twitter account,…
Labor union membership has declined dramatically in the past six decades, from over a third of the workforce in 1945 to just 7.2 percent of private sector employees in 2009; unions are now overwhelmingly concentrated in the public sector. But organized labor continues to wield tremendous political…
The Lost Books of the Odyssey
The Kids Are All Right
With the just completed exchange of spies between the United States and Russia, the media storm will undoubtedly soon disappear. Amid all the accounts of such arcana as steganography, brush passes, and dead drops, the fascination with Internet photos of a naked and sexy Anna Chapman, and tales of…
For Republicans, the Road Map authored by congressman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin is the most important proposal in domestic policy since Ronald Reagan embraced supply side economics in the 1980 presidential campaign. It’s not only the freshest, boldest, and most comprehensive Republican thinking, it’s…
Mad World
Barring cataclysm, Connecticut Republicans will nominate Linda McMahon to run for Chris Dodd’s vacant Senate seat on August 10. McMahon is a political neophyte. Her chief credential is that she was CEO of America’s largest professional wrestling outfit, World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE).
The Washington Post catches up with Tito Muñoz, aka Tito the Builder:
The Washington Post's ombudsman, Andrew Alexander, explains why his paper is only now covering the New Black Panther voter intimidation case:
When Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was assassinated in Dubai last January, and his cause of death later ascribed to foul play, it didn’t take long before the British press found itself the beneficiary of a troika of good copy. First, al-Mabhouh’s end had been delivered by the injection of a…
Ben Smith has an interesting piece in Politico on differences between conservatives regarding the Justice Department’s dismissal of the New Black Panther voter intimidation case and the subsequent investigation by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. Conservative heavyweights Abigail Thernstrom and…
President Obama wants to declare a truce in his war on the business community. And, well, he might. For one thing, he has won almost all of the ground attainable between now and the November congressional elections. His health care “reform” is law of the land, and his financial-sector regulation…
"The race has been all about her"--Sharron Angle losing to Harry Reid 37% to 44%.
Congressman Bart Stupak issues a statement blaming "conservative groups" for spreading "misinformation about whether or not pre-existing condition insurance pools will use federal dollars for abortion services":
Hugo Chávez has stooped to a new low in his quest to hijack the memory of Latin American independence leader Simón Bolívar - cracking open the hero's tomb and pulling his body out.
On Wednesday, Hannelore Kraft became minister-president of North-Rhine Westphalia, Germany’s most populous state, with a minority coalition government between her left-wing SPD party and the Greens. To get herself elected, the 49-year-old SPD politician – a trained economist who previously served…
Jimmy Carter's National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski showed up on "Morning Joe" today to hang another Carter analogy on Obama.
West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin is expected to pick his former general counsel Carte Goodwin to fill the late Sen. Robert Byrd's vacant seat until a special election can be held, likely this fall. The appointment of a close aide suggests once again that Manchin does indeed have his eyes on the seat.
The AP reports that Democratic West Virginia governor Joe Manchin "is tapping his former chief counsel and a member of a prominent West Virginia family, Carte Goodwin, to succeed the late U.S. Sen. Robert C. Byrd."
This has been a great couple of weeks for Sarah Palin. Her endorsements show that her finger is on the pulse of Republican voters. She released a campaign-style video that won plaudits from the D.C. establishment. Her PAC announced that it had raised funds commensurate with other serious contenders…
A history lesson from Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee:
“Appeasement” became a dirty word only after the 1930s. Paul Kennedy, a professor of history at Yale University, has long been interested in resurrecting its honorable side, and he takes another crack at the task in the latest issue of the National Interest.
Congress passes financial regulatory bill -- "the stiffest restrictions on banks and Wall Street since the Great Depression."
Ben Smith reports on the Sestak campaign's attempt to prevent Comcast from airing the Emergency Committee for Israel's ad:
Over the years, there has been plenty of handwringing over the issue of whether al Shabaab, the Islamist terror group in Somalia, is allied with al Qaeda. Despite the fact that al Shabaab announced its intent to merge with al Qaeda in September 2008, and al Qaeda's second in command, Ayman al…
The people and wildlife of the Gulf are getting a respite, at least for the moment, from the millions of gallons of oil that have been flowing into the Gulf of Mexico since April 20:
Saturday, July 17, was the day Palestinians were slated to hold a municipal election in the West Bank. But the elections were scrapped. Initially, only groups like Hamas rejected the vote. Then, last month, the Palestinian Authority (PA) opted to postpone the elections entirely. The legislative…
As a rule of thumb, when lauding the modern manufacturing made possible by the president's $900 billion stimulus package, it is wise not to use the theme song of a popular early-80s sitcom.
Rasmussen continues to show a tight Senate race in Wisconsin:
From Public Policy Polling:
Douglas Johnson of the National Right to Life Committee explains that the Pennsylvania high-risk insurance pool--funded entirely by the federal government--will provide coverage for elective abortions:
The anti-Israel, UN sponsored Goldstone Report enters its second phase of its assault on Israel, aiming at stripping that nation of its right to self-defense and legitimacy. (Anne Bayefsky detailed this move here.)
No doubt the president's breakfast was ruined this morning when he picked up the Washington Post and saw the front-page above-the-fold headline: "House Democrats hit boiling point over perceived lack of White House support." In it, Democratic representatives named and unnamed sound off on both…
First Olbermann didn't know MSNBC was running a Twitter account for him and now this? So much for the tech-savvy libs.
If Israel and its neighbors are ever to arrive at a stable and genuine peace, Palestinian incitement of hatred –and its predilection for murderous acts – must cease. It is an elementary proposition, and one to which the Palestinian Authority has unambiguously agreed. The Oslo Accords are clear: The…
Do budget deficits matter? In one sense the answer is unequivocally yes. Experts agree that when the federal government spends more than it takes in for a sustained period and borrows to make up the difference, the result is severe economic consequences.
One study calculates Toyota lost $250 million in brand equity (about 1/4 of what BP's lost in the oil spill) during the media and Congressional furor over its alleged problems with "sudden acceleration." But a new study, conducted by the federal government's National Highway Traffic Safety…
Jennifer Rubin, who has previously covered the New Black Panther voter intimidation case here, here, and here, writes in to provide this update on the case:
Last week, Chinese novelist Yu Jie was taken into custody and interrogated by the State Security Bureau after announcing that he would soon be publishing a book, titled China's Best Actor: Wen Jiabao, about China's premier. After his release, Yu insisted that he would continue to pursue publication…
Newly appointed ISAF commander General David Petraeus has scored his first political victory in Afghanistan. The Washington Post reports that Petraeus has convinced President Hamid Karzai to back local "community police" programs in Afghanistan:
Ben Smith reports that CBS and NBC refuse to air a National Republican Trust Pac ad that targets the planned Ground Zero mosque. Here's the ad:
Joe Manchin, the very popular Democratic governor of West Virginia, is expected to announce sometime very soon that he will be running to fill Robert Byrd's Senate seat. A Rasmussen poll from last week showed Manchin leading Republican Rep. Shelley Moore Capito 53% to 39%. Manchin has an astounding…
Catherine Herridge reports for Fox News on detainees playing video games at Gitmo:
More evidence that Obama's lawsuit against Arizona is a disaster for Democrats: CBS is out with a new poll that shows 57% of Americans think Arizona's immigration law is "about right" and 17% think it "doesn't go far enough."
It's definitely going to take Obama's superior conflict management skills to smooth this over. Democrats are not-so-privately fuming over Robert Gibbs' admission on "Meet the Press" this week that Dems could lose the House.
Among the multitude of attacks on Israel that the United Nations has sponsored over the decades, last year’s Goldstone report on the 2009 Gaza war stands out for its dangerous distortions of fact and law. Now the UN Human Rights Council has sponsored a second-team of investigators to press forward…
Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, endangered Democrat of South Dakota, apparently didn't read Mark Halperin's March assessment of how dangerous opposing Obama's awesome health care bill could be.
A fascinating nugget comes from an unnamed senior U.S. official in a story today by ABC’s Jake Tapper. Citing U.S. intelligence, the official states that "Al Qaeda recruits have said that al Qaeda is racist against black members from West Africa because they are only used in lower level operations."
Count Harry Reid as one of the Democrats who has absolutely no interest in entitlement reform. During the same TV interview in which he backed the Obama DOJ's lawsuit against Arizona and said that Obama's isn't confronational enough, Majority Leader Harry Reid said that Social Security is just fine…
It was only a few short years ago when the war in Iraq was perceived as a lost cause and an unmitigated disaster. Tides of pessimism washed over our body politic, well reflected in books like Thomas Ricks’s Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2003-2005.
Was that poll showing Fiorina in the lead too good to be true?
Sadly, it is too late for any of us to meet Charlotte McCourt. The Nevada grandmother passed away this week at the age of 84 after a long illness. But it is not too late for Charlotte to tell everyone exactly how she feels.
CBS poll: 13 percent of Americans believe Obama policies have helped them; 52 percent believe he's spent too little time on the economy.
If someone whom a Republican president had appointed to a high government position were to give a speech defending the Supreme Court’s decision in Plessy v. Ferguson, which upheld racial segregation under the heading of “separate but equal,” one would expect a political firestorm. Yet when just…
On Tuesday, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a stinging rebuke to a district court that granted a Guantanamo detainee’s habeas petition last year. The detainee in question is Mohammed al-Adahi, a Yemeni whom District Judge Gladys Kessler ordered freed in August 2009.
Taxpayer-funded Obamacare abortions coming soon.
Local Afghan villagers in the southeastern province of Ghazni have defeated a Taliban force that crossed from the neighboring province of Uruzgan. ISAF tells the story:
Last week, British Prime Minister David Cameron announced that his government has agreed to investigate torture allegations made by former Guantanamo detainees. The inquiry is expected to last one year. And, according to Cameron, it will look into claims that British officials knew of “improper…
I can't help but feel there may be hope for the nation yet when progressives start getting nervous about what Democrats are saying on entitlements.
Last week, executives from two public German television channels hosted Ezzatollah Zarghami, the president of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB). Zarghami allegedly has ties to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp, an organization designated as a global terrorist entity by the U.S.…
Over at the Long War Journal, Bill Ardolino has another dispatch from Afghanistan. Here's a taste:
Rasmussen shows that Harry Reid is gaining on Sharron Angle in the Nevada Senate race:
Democratic Senator Carl Levin of Michigan said this morning that he doesn't object to surveying the troops' opinions on repealing the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy and that repealing the law would result in the full integration of gays in all areas of the military, including combat roles.
One bright spot for President Obama in an otherwise dreary Washington Post/ABC News poll:
Big news out of England yesterday where BAE unveiled "Taranis"--the first stealth UAV. With two weapons bays, the super-drone will not only be able to strike ground targets, but will be capable of engaging aerial targets as well. An air-to-air UAV (or UACV) is interesting enough. But what makes…
“Strong Russian Remarks on Iran Please Washington” is the headline of a Reuters report on Russian President Dmitry Medevev’s latest assessment of Iran’s nuclear program.
Shoe box bomb injures oil exec's wife. Darn violent Tea Partiers.
The Scrapbook recently read former Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham's latest book, Lights Out: Ten Myths about (and Real Solutions to) America’s Energy Crisis:
Until relatively recently, populist autocracy seemed to be advancing relentlessly across Latin America, backed by Venezuelan petrodollars and guided by the Castro brothers. It was definitely expanding into Bolivia, Ecuador, and Nicaragua; it was threatening to infect other countries in Central and…
California Democratic senator Barbara boxer is trailing Republican challenger Carly Fiorina by 2 points--47% to 45%--in a new SurveyUSA poll of likely voters released this evening. Fiorina has been closing in on Boxer--cutting the Democrat's lead from six, to five, to four, to three points in the…
Ross Douthat: The class war we need.
Fred Barnes writes in the Wall Street Journal today:
From the Chicago Sun-Times, we find out that Illinois Democratic Senate candidate Alexi Giannoulias has been hiding out in Canada, raising money from trial lawyers:
The newly-formed Emergency Committee for Israel -- as Ben Smith reports here -- has just released its first ad, attacking Joe Sestak for his record on Israel. Here's the group's first spot:
In an article in the Sunday edition of the German tabloid Bild, the head of the German police union, Rainer Wendt, slammed the German government’s decision to accept two Guantánamo detainees slated for transfer. Noting that both detainees had received training at al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan,…
Who'da thunk it? The man who would not rest until the oil leak was stopped but has taken three vacations since it started, the man who spent a year pushing a giant health-care bill a majority of Americans vocally opposed, is now making Democrats look increasingly out of touch by pushing an…
The United Nations' refusal to condemn North Korea for sinking a South Korean vessel is regrettable but not surprising. In 1995, the U.N. allowed a nightmare to transpire when the blue helmets under Dutch command negotiated with Serbian general Ratko Mladic and in the process allowed thousands of…
Josh Rogin has the rundown on the UN's response to the killing of over 40 South Korean sailors by North Korea:
AP reports that Newt Gingrich is "considering a presidential run" and "expects to make a decision by early next year."
The provocative anti-Israel posture of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the AKP firebrand, appears to have lost some favor within Turkey itself. But how about among the two and a half million Turkish immigrants and their descendants in Germany? Could Turkish Muslims in Western Europe, under AKP…
The St. Petersburg Times reports Marco Rubio's campaign breaks a quarterly fundraising record:
After trying to avoid taking a position on the Justice Department's lawsuit against Arizona's immigration law, Harry Reid admitted Friday night in a TV interview that he supports the administration. Transcript via the NRSC:
Kudos to Paul the Octopus for selecting Spain as the winner of this year's World Cup (and selecting Germany for third place in Saturday's game). In all, the "psychic" cephalopod correctly—and consecutively—picked eight matches. The Germans hailed him as one of their own until he chose Spain over…
"If you want a dialogue in a civil manner, don't say that I'm not saying the truth!" Ciro Rodriguez (D-Tex.) screams at a constituent after slamming a newspaper against a table. Big Government has the video:
Here is Benjamin Netanyahu on Fox News with Chris Wallace:
Political prognositcator Charlie Cook, who last week wrote that a GOP hurricane might be on its way, has been pegged as more bullish than most on the GOP's November chances.
It reminds me of a quote attributed to Ansel Adams: "Sometimes I do get to places just when God's ready to have somebody click the shutter."
Sad: "Lance Armstrong said his hopes of Tour de France victory are finished after he struggled in the Alps and was caught up in three crashes during an eighth stage won by Andy Schleck of Luxembourg on Sunday."
Musa Qala District, Northern Helmand Province, Afghanistan
Charles Robb and Charles Wald discuss U.S.-Iran policy in the Washington Post:
The Scrapbook rounds up some of the best quotations from Marine General James Mattis, who was selected this week to head CENTCOM:
Last week, the details of the plot to bomb New York City subways in 2009 expanded dramatically. We learned that the NYC plot was connected to two others, in the UK and Norway, and that all three can be traced back to senior al Qaeda leadership in northern Pakistan. The reporting on the Norway…
President Barack Obama, Larry Summers, and the rest of the White House economic team think a second stimulus package is needed if the recovery is to be sustainable and job creation is to perk up. They point out that debt-ridden consumers, aware that their various benefits, especially state…
Even after Octavia Nasr apologized for her ill-advised “tweet” over the July 4 holiday expressing her “respect” for the recently deceased Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, CNN fired its senior editor for Middle East affairs. And now bloggers and journalists are up in arms. Some are blaming the job action…
The Hill reports:
Charles Krauthammer wonders:
Turkey slides toward radicalization. And Barack Obama nominates for ambassador to Turkey Francis J. Ricciardone Jr., a career diplomat with a proven track record of being weak on democracy and human rights. Josh Rogin explains what's going on:
Jonathan Martin reports:
You'd think the life of Paul the Octopus, living in a German seaquarium, couldn't get any better. He never has to worry about predators, food is never scarce, and the people love him. The only strenuous exercise for the cephalopod is selecting winners for World Cup matches, which he has done…
File this away in your "Democrats embodying stereotypes of Republicans" folder, along with pro-impeachment Democrat Kesha Rogers of Texas. In Rep. Carolyn Maloney's Upper East Side district (NY-14), constituents who are employed by Wall Street are none too happy with the rhetoric out of Washington,…
On the 100 day anniversary that Obamacare became law, which was Wednesday, Senators Coburn and Barrasso passed around a memo reminding folks that the law isn't actually good for America:
The 9/11 Commission castigated the CIA for neglecting to collect and analyze intelligence about terrorist financing. It noted that “information about terrorist money helps us to understand [al-Qaeda] networks, search them out, and disrupt their operations.” In response, the Bush administration…
Barbie's a libertarian!
A federal lawsuit is never a laughing matter – especially when the U.S. Department of Justice signs the complaint. But the Obama administration's complaint against Arizona faces serious obstacles in the federal courts.
Obama thinks Israelis are bigoted or dumb: "During the interview Wednesday, when confronted with the anxiety that some Israelis feel toward him, Obama said that "'some of it may just be the fact that my middle name is Hussein, and that creates suspicion.'"
Remember when Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr., (D-Ill.) denied "unequivocally" any wrongdoing in the 2008 Illinois Senate seat pay-for-play scandal? Here's the New York Times report in which Jackson says he didn't try to strike a deal with governor Rod Blagojevich to get Barack Obama's vacated seat:
Japan heads to the polls on Sunday to elect the upper house of its national legislature – and no matter what the result, Yoshimi Watanabe and his newly-minted Your Party will be big winners.
Recently, Niall Ferguson offered a five-minute summary of his current thinking at the Aspen Ideas Festival. It's essential stuff. RealClearPolitics has the video and transcript. One key point:
Two noteworthy stories dealing with Gitmo detainee transfers came out of Europe this week. The first comes from Spain, where the daily newspaper El Mundo reports that Spanish intelligence authorities are worried about the risks posed by transferred detainees.
At a Pentagon presser, Secretary Gates just announced that Marine General James Mattis will be the new head of CENTCOM. Hats off to Secretary Gates and President Obama, Mattis is the right man for a tough job. Read General Mattis's bio here.
In a press conference late last week, Speaker Nancy Pelosi addressed legislation before the House to extend unemployment benefits until November 30. Asked if the extension would serve as a "disincentive for people to look for work," Pelosi dismissed the argument as a “misrepresentation of the…
Washington woke up this morning to the unthinkable -- kind words from the establishment, in the form of Politico's Mike Allen, for Sarah Palin. The former governor's political action committee has released a video which speaks to one of Palin's favorite themes: the rising tide of conservative women…
David Blankenhorn, a valued contributor to THE WEEKLY STANDARD, has embarked on a doubtless quixotic quest for fair treatment at the hands of the New York Times. His letter to the paper’s “public editor” details, with characteristic clarity and courtesy, his thuggish treatment at the hands of…
The National Taxpayer Advocate Service, an independent body within the IRS meant to iron out taxpayer problems with IRS systems, said in a report today that the new health care bill has charged the agency with doing things it's not prepared to do:
Tragic: An 82-year-old man shoots at thieves stealing his truck. After being shot, they admit to stealing his truck, at which point the homeowner defending himself is charged with attempted murder and the admitted thieves are charged with...nothing.
While CNN was busy firing senior editor for Middle East affairs Octavia Nasr for tweeting niceties about Hezbollah's recently deceased spiritual leader, another effusive tribute to terrorist Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah seeped out into cyberspace -- this one coming from, shockingly enough, the…
In California, a new Field Poll of likely voters shows Senator Barbara Boxer leading Republican challenger Carly Fiorina just 47% to 44%. The San Francisco Chronicle reports:
The Palestinian-Israeli “peace process” is about to enter a parlous phase. However much the fraying American-Israeli relationship has been publicly patched up by Benjamin Netanyahu’s talks in the White House with Barack Obama, the fact remains that in the weeks and months ahead, Israel will be…
Al Qaeda has replaced its emir, or leader, for Afghanistan, according to a report in the Asia Times. While al Qaeda hasn't officially announced the appointment, the author of the article has been adept at identifying top terror leaders in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and he has extensive contacts with…
President Obama’s behavior over the past year, and particularly the last month, borders on bizarre. The candidate who promised to bring people together and move beyond polarization has morphed into a divisive and defensive president.
Former President George W. Bush recently gave a speech before a business group meeting in Houston, Texas. In the speech, he explained how he came to endorse bailouts for financial companies, auto companies, etc., toward the end of his term. He said that his personal inclination was to avoid…
The Sharron Angle campaign blasted the Obama administration's lawsuit against Arizona today. "Our country's at war on two fronts and we have 10 percent unemployment -- and what is President Obama focused on? Using his Department of Justice to interfere with the sovereignty of Arizona," Angle…
Judging by some of the headlines, you’d think that the Gitmo detainee who pled guilty before a military commission today was merely a chef for Osama bin Laden. A BBC headline reads: “Bin Laden chef pleads guilty at Guantanamo Bay trial.” Another headline, from Reuters, is in the same vein: “Bin…
Had Germany been triumphant in today's semifinal match, all the talk would have been about the Dutch seeking revenge for World War II. Instead, Spain scored the one and only goal, proving once again that Paul the Octopus is all-knowing. (He is now taking bets for the Super Bowl.)
Mediaite reports that CNN has fired senior editor of Middle East affairs Octavia Nasr. As Daniel Halper pointed out the other day, Nasr wrote on Twitter on July 4 that she was "sad" to hear of the death of Hezbollah's Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah--a man for whom she has "respect." Fadlallah…
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is fresh off a goodwill tour to the Republic of Georgia, part of a larger effort to reassure a nervous eastern Europe that the administration's "reset" policy toward Russia won't come at the expense of Russia's democratic neighbors.
Senator John Barrasso, a leading spokesman for congressional Republicans on health care issues, today accused President Barack Obama of "intentionally misleading" the country and Congress by appointing Donald Berwick to run the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services. The White House yesterday…
To hear liberals tell it, the Citizens United decision unleashed a torrent of frightful, unregulated free political speech that will drown out the voices of regular citizens in favor of powerful and nefarious corporate forces.
With the second World Cup semifinal underway, it is worth noting that one very accurate predictor (at least this time around) has chosen Spain over Germany. Previously he picked Germany over Argentina, Germany over England, and, stunningly, Serbia over Germany—all of which proved correct. As you…
Eli Lake reports:
John McCain has an op-ed in USA Today explaining why he is opposing Elena Kagan:
It took the mainstream media nearly a year to catch up. Jennifer Rubin began reporting on the New Black Panther case in August 2009, hit it again in December 2009, and then provided a tick-tock of the scandal last month. The mainstream media studiously avoided any coverage of the scandal. Now that…
Here's some anti-government violence from an out-of-control mob you won't hear much about, from Illinois:
The West Virginia Republicans have been pressing for a fall election to replace the late senator Robert Byrd--even threatening a lawsuit to force one. After some initial reluctance it appears that governor Joe Manchin may give them what they are asking for. Politico reports Manchin says he's…
Dan Senor vs. Pat Buchanan on Michael Steele and Afghanistan:
Private First Class Bradley Manning, arrested in May and transferred from Iraq to a detention center in Kuwait, has now been formally charged with passing a classified video to Wikileaks.org, and also with providing the shadowy website with more than 50 classified State Department cables. According…
Public servants: Teachers unions will avoid reforms if Washington keeps bailing them out.
Tomorrow, President Obama will bypass the Senate and give Donald Berwick a recess appointment to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The Republican Policy Committee points out that "Democrats never called a hearing on Dr. Berwick’s nomination."
I know it's less fun to blame the feds when Obama's in charge, HuffPost headline writers, but the folks actually using the force of law to keep media away from oil spill areas are not BP, but the Coast Guard, with support from the Obama administration.
As I mentioned in a previous column, there are "serious Germans" who are certain that their team's success in the World Cup will spill over to the governing coalition. The better the Mannschaft does, the better for Angela Merkel. Of course it's not just sports that could save the chancellor's…
Stop Iran Now debuts a new ad today, asking the president to be on the right side of history:
Eric Holder v. Jan Brewer:
In a recent Washington Post column, economics reporter Howard Schneider had an intriguing take on the remake of The Karate Kid and the film's view of America in decline, China's rise, environmentalism, and the power of globalization. In other words, this remake is a real downer—at least for those…
Michael Hayden was CIA director from 2006 to 2009. No one was waterboarded under his watch. But General Hayden has vigorously defended the CIA’s role in interrogating al Qaeda prisoners. Here is an excerpt form a fascinating interview with Hayden, just published by the CIA’s house organ, Studies in…
All parties in the German Parliament passed a resolution last Thursday slamming the Jewish state for its interception of a flotilla heading for Gaza in open violation of Israel’s naval blockade.
How does J Street welcome Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to town? By politicizing American support for Israel. In a new ad said to air nationally (on al-Jazeera English maybe?), the group makes a silly attempt to ‘juxtapose’ those who say ‘yes’ to peace with those who say….well, it’s…
Via Gateway Pundit, Charles Krauthammer has some choice words for the president's policy of using NASA to boost Muslim self-esteem:
MSNBC reports:
The Democratic National Committee is highlighting this exchange on MSNBC:
Well, I guess now we know why Kal Penn left the administration. It wasn't because he suddenly realized he'd given up a plum regular role on a top-rated network TV show for a wholly unfulfilling career as a flack for Obama administration policies, which— let's face it— didn't give him nearly the…
The stakes are already quite high for the 2012 presidential election. It will likely determine the fate of Obamacare. If Republicans win the presidency, the House, and the Senate, there's a good chance they'll be able to repeal Obamacare--or at least gut it through reconciliation--and replace it…
A friend notes: "Since we gutted their budget and cancelled most of their projects, what else do they have to do?" For more on NASA's new direction, read Jim Prevor's "The Distance NASA Travelled Over 48 Years."
Three things the U.S. should do.
Think quick: What tasks would the president of the United States charge the head of NASA with performing: Going to Mars? Returning to the moon? Finding a replacement for the Space Shuttle? Enhancing U.S. technology?
Since taking office in 1999, Venezuelan ruler Hugo Chávez has embraced just about every anti-American dictator and strongman on the planet. So it was no surprise last weekend when Syrian boss Bashar Assad made his first trip to Latin America and met with Chávez in Caracas. Chávez said that Assad’s…
How did CNN senior editor of Middle East affairs Octavia Nasr celebrate July 4? By mourning the passing of Hezbollah's Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah. Here's what the CNN editor posted on her Twitter account:
Support for repealing Obamacare hit an all-time low of 52% in Rasmussen's polling a couple weeks ago. Now support for repeal is back up to 60%. It's generally been in the upper 50s since the health care bill became law in March, hitting a high of 63% in May.
Last week the Washington Post fired conservative-beat reporter and blogger David Weigel following the leak of his incendiary emails on a liberal listserv JournoList. Weigel had been hired by the Post after working at the left-wing Washington Independent. Does his departure bode ill for reporters at…
On ABC's This Week yesterday, Senator John McCain questioned Michael Steele's ability to lead to the RNC following Steele's remarks that Afghanistan is is "a war of Obama’s choosing" and that "the one thing you don’t do, is engage in a land war in Afghanistan":
Said Jawad, Afghanistan's Ambassador to the U.S., has publicly come out against the July 2011 timeline to begin withdrawing forces from the war-torn country. Jawad's arguments against the timeline -- it sends all of the wrong messages to the Afghan people, the Taliban, and regional actors -- is not…
Success in Afghanistan is possible. The policy that President Obama announced in December and firmly reiterated last week is sound. So is the strategy that General Stanley McChrystal devised last summer and has been implementing this year. There have been setbacks and disappointments during this…
There was a very brief, one column/two-inch obituary in the Washington Post last week, which caught our attention: “Dwight Armstrong,” the headline read. And then the sub-headline: “Vietnam War Protester.” A slight chill went down the spine of The Scrapbook.
Three months after his career-defining health care vote, Michigan Democratic representative Bart Stupak still bristles at questions surrounding the deal he cut with President Obama on abortion. “The executive order says public funds cannot be used for abortion,” says Stupak, and those who say…
Having safely deposited our daughter in Williams-town, Massachusetts, for the summer, my alluring wife and I decided to shunpike our way back home to Washington—a picturesque way to describe avoiding metropolitan New York, Interstate 95, the New Jersey Turnpike, and their attendant horrors. This…
Let us now praise Barack Obama.
You can never be sure when or why one industry or another will draw the attention of the Mr. Fixits of our federal government. Just imagine: There you are, Mr. or Ms. Businessperson, walking along, making money, minding your own business, and then wham: They pop up out of nowhere, wheeling around…
Columbia, Missouri
In English-speaking countries, the French armed forces have become a joke. Literally. Entire websites are devoted to one-liners like: “How many gears do French tanks have? Six: five reverse and one forward.” This is a gross slander of a nation that, back in the days of Louis XIV and Napoleon, was…
Much of my education, such as it is, is owing to intellectual journalism. I first discovered the intellectual journals—Partisan Review, Kenyon Review, Sewanee Review, Dissent, Encounter, and others—in my wanderings in the periodical room of William Rainey Harper Library in my junior year at the…
If you can't make it to the Proud to be American July 4th Tea Party on Independence Mall in Philadelphia to hear Bill Kristol speak, there are other ways to commemorate America's independence.
The celebration of American Independence has a way of illuminating the Anglo-American relationship, especially during times of war. Although July 4, 1776 marked the date when the American people dissolved "the political bands which have connected them" with Great Britain, July 4, 1940 signified…
Last year, Barack Obama and his crack foreign policy team (Valerie Jarrett? David Axelrod?) came up with a grand strategy for dealing with the Iranians: hot dog diplomacy. Here was the plan: Host Iranian diplomats for Fourth of July barbecues at American embassies across the globe. This good will…
We Americans needed this weekend, with something to celebrate -- our independence from overseas oppressors. Indeed, the Tea Party movement is attempting to recapture the attitude of our nation’s founders toward overweening government, in this case our own. The distance from Washington to Main…
First day on the job for General David Petraeus in Afghanistan.
Bill Clinton on Robert Byrd's role as Exalted Cyclops of the KKK:
The headline of Peter Baker’s piece in Thursday’s New York Times pretty much says it all: “Despite Arrests, Working to Rebuild Russia Ties.”
Trying to take advantage of Michael Steele's resignation-worthy comments that Afghanistan is "a war of Obama’s choosing" and that "the one thing you don’t do, is engage in a land war in Afghanistan," Democratic National Committee spokesman Brad Woodhouse issued the following statement:
Sharron Angle talks to Ed Morrissey:
Christian Wulff took the oath of office in Berlin today, capping a political cliffhanger for Chancellor Angela Merkel, who narrowly secured an absolute majority for her ruling center-right coalition’s presidential candidate after two inconclusive rounds of voting on Wednesday in the Federal…
The latest from RNC chairman Michael Steele:
Dear Michael,
After the Supreme Court affirmed this week in McDonald v. Chicago that Second-Amendment rights for individuals do indeed apply even within a 25-mile radius of organic grocers and a liberal city council, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley went to work to subvert his constituents' newfound right to self…
One year ago today, approximately 2,000 Marines from the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade loaded into dozens of U.S. Army helicopters from the 101st Airborne Division or manned guns in a ground convoy vehicle to begin “Operation Khanjari,” moving into the heart of insurgent-controlled territory in…
Sakineh Mohammadie Ashtiani, a 42-year-old mother of two, confessed to the crime of adultery in 2006 after being subjected to 99 lashes. She later recanted her statement, but was found guilty despite the fact that there were no witnesses to her adultery, as is supposed to be required in the Iranian…
Jack Goldsmith ranks among the very best conservative legal scholars. He also wins acclaim from liberals, who applauded his criticism of the Bush administration's legal arguments supporting aspects of the nation's response to the attacks of 9/11, during his tenure in President Bush's Justice…
"They are overwhelmingly white and Anglo, although a scattering of Hispanics, Asian Americans and African Americans combine to make up almost one-fourth of their ranks."
Err: "The Obama administration has not ruled out turning sick people away from an insurance program created by the new healthcare law to provide coverage for the uninsured."
Today, RedState.com's Erick Erickson wrote, "Multiple sources tell me the National Rifle Association is planning to endorse liberal Harry Reid against pro-gun champion Sharron Angle." The NRA's chief lobbyist, Chris Cox, told THE WEEKLY STANDARD this evening that the pro-gun rights group has not…
The arrests this week of ten Russian spies in the United States (another was picked up in Cyprus, released on bond, and has been missing ever since) have provoked an outpouring of news stories and commentary, not only here but abroad. The FBI’s complaint includes scenes that appear to come from a…
The widespread condemnation Europeans have expressed toward Israel after its commandos boarded the so-called peace flotilla on May 31 - and used force only when threatened with death - signals a desire to turn every Israeli action of self-defense into absolution for the crimes of the Holocaust.
The NRA announces in a letter that it will oppose the confirmation of Elena Kagan:
The AP is reporting that:
With the deficit soaring, it might not be the easiest time to make the case for increased defense spending. But the long-term prognosis for the U.S. military isn't good -- we are embroiled in two tough wars, face threats along a spectrum of conflict that is at its widest in history (from cyber to…
Lee Smith devoted his weekly column at Tablet to a worthwhile symposium on Obama's foreign policy in the Middle East. Particularly of interest are the responses given by Elliott Abrams and Dore Gold.
In his official response to criticism for his appearance in an infomercial telling viewers how to get "free money" from the government, former congressman J.D. Hayworth says his words are being misrepresented by John McCain, Hayworth's opponent in Arizona GOP Senate primary.
The Obama administration’s policy of engagement with Syria has yielded yet more rewards.
Rasmussen, June 22, 2010:
Last week, Sarah Palin, a former vice presidential candidate for the Republican Party and grassroots darling who serves in no elected or official capacity, tweeted a link to a Thomas Sowell column that included a reference to Nazi tactics. Democrats were outraged that she seemingly endorsed the…
The BP CEO for Gulf Restoration will take questions live on YouTube this afternoon, if you'd like to submit some questions that aren't from emo teenagers and climate-change activists asking about cap-and-trade.
Speaking to reporters at the G-20 summit in Toronto, President Obama declared his intention to complete the U.S.–South Korea free-trade agreement, which was signed by the Bush administration three years ago. “I want to make sure that everything is lined up properly by the time I visit Korea in…
If legislation were dirt, Democrats would have piled up a mountain of it over the past 18 months, digging themselves in a deep political hole in the process.
The Washington Post's Lori Montgomery reports: